Particpatory Habitat in Montreuil - GianLuca Gaudenzi - NZI Architectes - France

1.PARTICIPATORY HABITAT: POWER TO THE PEOPLE?

An unusual model

Designing a residential building implies knowing the inhabitants who will occupy it. This is not always the case - paradoxically - in the current practice of the architectural profession.

First of all, as soon as we immersed ourselves in this adventure, we retained the proximity to the users. Knowing their names, their faces and their journeys brought us emotionally closer to them.

It reinforced the notion of responsibility that we are accustomed to engage in the daily life of our profession. It is no longer a matter of successfully achieving a financial equation through the manufacture of a lambda building. In this adventure we were the guarantors of the realization of the dream for 26 families. And it was out of the question to disappoint them!

Secondly, our concern was that there was virtually no program. This involved a good deal of courage on the part of the designers. The main ambitions of the program were: building with corridors, a roof garden, common rooms and 26 dwellings…and that’s all.

Keeping promises

The pedagogical method: from the individual to the professional

We were also in charge of a contract of “assistance” to the client for defining the program. Our role then consisted in the development of the project following the meetings (Design Workshops) with the inhabitants which were held once every two weeks over 5 months.

Increasing the pace was necessary to give concrete answers to the expectations. Often avant-garde, the inhabitants were not lacking in imagination.

The pedagogical process was indeed necessary in order to fulfill the ambitions with the rules of the professional world, especially in the process of construction where the interlocutors are multiple.

Our main concern was not to disappoint the expectations: the adopted strategy aims at the most feasible proposal, leaving more ambitious options temporarily aside. We felt it was necessary to announce surprises rather than failures, both in terms of domestic and external performance.

Once the building permit was obtained, the inhabitants drew their dwelling with us. Our role was on counseling, based on personal specifications and compositions of each household. We did not impose our vision, the objective being to make their home.

The rest is in the realization of this building which is, in the eyes of the inhabitants, a special living place. The meeting spaces are many and different: they were conceived outside the practice of classical profitability. If some dwellings have private spaces, the spaces of circulations gather to terraces or balconies. They are open to the outside and suitable by the inhabitants of each level.

In our opinion time will tell if this type of habitat will have a long life.

In any case, it is obvious that the fact that the actors know each other before starting and that they have deepened their relations, experienced the critical phases together, today makes a rather incredible cohabitation.

This community, because of this, will evolve: some will sell their apartments, others will praise them and maybe others will be caught in the classical conflicts of life in common. At that time the thesis of participatory habitat will be put to the test and we will have a feedback on this singular and exciting adventure.

2. A DOUBLE-FACE ARCHITECTURE

The implementation of the project was designed to create an urban continuity on Charton Street.

The architectural landscape of this district is very heterogeneous, combining industrial buildings, collective housing buildings and individual houses of various shapes and colors. Masses do not exceed two or three levels in the near environment.

From this observation, we designed two buildings parallel to the street respecting the masse on three levels characterizing the district.

The first building (Building A) is lined up on the street and is located at the corner of Désiré Charton Street and Léontine Préaux Street. The second building (Building B) is at the bottom of the plot.

This implementation defines a "double face" aspect of the project. An urban building on the street and a "landscaped" building in the heart of an islet.

The space created between the two buildings defines the shared interior garden. This garden will be both a place of passage to distribute housing and a landscaped space available for all inhabitants.

COLLECTIVE EXTERNAL SPACES:

Open Circulations

Beyond the clearly defined areas for the inhabitants in the use of leisure, breathing and comfort in the act of inhabiting, the common circulations represent a real subject of reflection in the practice of housing design. If open-air circulation covers the classic distribution role, the scale we have given leaves room for more spontaneous occupations.

A posteriori the youngest inhabitants make a play area and the inhabitants can arrive in front of their accommodation with their own bike. The widths of the corridors are not strictly limited to the regulation but exceed 180 cm in order to offer common terraces in addition to the privative extensions of the houses acquired.

a. Garden on the ground floor

The garden on the ground floor, serves several functions: it is both a pedestrian distribution area, a convivial space and a rain garden for the surface management of rainwater.

It is planted with trees of high stem and small grapes with decorative barks, as well as masses of grasses and shrubs. The distances between the dwellings and the edge of the valley are made by means of massifs of shrubs and grasses. They will form a screen about 80cm high to ensure privacy in the accommodations.

The grassed spaces are all collective, but the appropriation of the space in front of the dwellings is expected. In this spirit, there is no adjoining fence between the houses overlooking the collective garden.

Two valleys run along the northern edge of the pathway, forming a tool for managing rainwater and also the point of composition of the garden.

b. Garden roof

The operation includes two accessible roof gardens: the largest (270m2) is on the courtyard building, the second smaller (90m2) is located at the corner of the building on the street.

The functions of these roofs are not deliberately defined to allow a subsequent appropriation by the inhabitants. However, the roofs are equipped with a complex of culture of 80cm in thickness whose composition is optimal for the vegetable production (soil modified in compost and sand).

c. Passageways

The passageways allow frontal access to the housing and the building has been organized to accommodate crossing accommodations with stays oriented South East in connection with the garden and rooms in the South West.

The passageways are not only distribution tools but they are designed as a friendly and meeting space. They represent a real extension of the house with a view of a specific landscape.

ACCESS AND DISTRIBUTIONS

Building A, with a total of 14 units in three levels are accessed by 2 staircases. It is composed of 4 dwellings on ground floor and a common shared place. The two staircases serve 10 houses on 2 levels.

The adopted circulation makes all the houses crossing, with a view on the street Charton and another one on the interior garden. At the corner of the building, the dwellings have a double / triple orientation.

The distribution spaces are open air and create volume generating generous common places for the inhabitants.

Building B with 12 units in total, is distributed by a staircase. It accommodates 8 dwellings on the floors distributed by a system of running passageways. It is also composed of 4 dwellings in the ground floor. It concentrates the basic demands of the specifications of the inhabitants.

The units on the ground floor of building B have, in addition, a rear garden facing west. No notion of separation was adopted by the inhabitants.

FACADE MATERIALS

The context of the neighborhood

The urban context presents a certain heterogeneity of architectural language as well as of the chromatic point of view. The facades of the buildings do not follow a defined logic and the urban scales and frames mix between individual houses, residential buildings and a building with fairly elongated activities (see building facing the parcel on Charton Street). The only common features are the typology of roofs (sloping roofs) and mineral facades: concrete, plasters and paints.

Based on this observation, we have designed the two buildings while respecting the neighborhood’s identity.

A- Facades on the street

The façade on the street consists of a concrete base with a gray shade, on which are superimposed houses (one story or two) clad in light-colored wood cladding. The black pedestal has a varied shape on Desiré Charton Street, which gives a graphic effect to the façade.

The stacked houses as well as the loggia parts and the terraces / balconies guardrails are covered in wooden cladding. They have sloping roofs reminiscent of the roofs of the district.

B- Courtyard

Façade of building A, punctuated by sloping roofs, has a light-colored wooden cladding on the two upper levels. The recessed parts, (in correspondence of the corridors) are in white coating, like the base.

Facade of Building B, has a plinth in white plaster on which are laid two volumes, one in white coating and the other in wood paneling ditto building A.